Obama Administration Denies Negative Effects of Abortion at UN Women's Meeting

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 12, 2009



New York, NY (LifeNews.com) -- The Obama administration has been pushing the pro-abortion agenda all week at the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meeting at the United Nations. During the forum, a representative of President Barack Obama denied that abortion causes any negative effects for women.

As LifeNews.com has noted, the Obama administration has been pushing the adoption of language in the outcome document CSW members hope to adopt that could be used later to create an international right to abortion.

Leading pro-life advocates such as Samantha Singson of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) have pointed out that the Obama administration is pushing the inclusion of the term “sexual and reproductive health and rights” in the document.

"The term 'sexual and reproductive health and rights' has been interpreted by radical feminist NGOs and some governments to include abortion," Singson writes in a report in the CFAM publication Friday Fax about the meeting.

At the CSW meeting, the Obama administration hosted a briefing where member of the US delegation, Ellen Chesler, said the president's priority is to ensure the term is included. Chesler claimed the rights are a “fundamental part” of the Beijing Platform for Action of the 1995 UN women’s meeting held in Beijing, China, where countries ultimately rejected attempts to make abortion an international “right.”

"The idea of sexual rights was rejected at the Beijing conference," Singson writes.

But the Obama administration representative went further, the CFAM pro-life advocate explained.

"Chesler, who authored a biography praising the work of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, also included promotion of a new UN gender office, as well as US commitment to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as priority issues for the Obama administration at this CSW," Singson wrote.

At the conclusion of the briefing, an audience member questioned the Obama administration’s support for abortion despite the myriad scientific evidence which shows how detrimental it is to the lives and health of women.

"Chesler dismissed the woman’s question stating that the evidence is 'unreliable because it has ideological elements,'" Singson writes.

However, three studies alone published in peer-reviewed medical journals at the end of 2008 show abortion causes problems for women.

Dr. Priscilla Coleman, a professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Bowling Green State University, and her colleagues published a study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research showing an abortion-depression link exists.

The research team found induced abortions result in increased risks for a myriad of mental health problems ranging from anxiety to depression to substance abuse disorders.

The number of cases of mental health issues rose by as much as 17 percent in women having abortions compared to those who didn't have one and the risks of each particular mental health problem rose as much as 145% for post-abortive women.

For 12 out of 15 of the mental health outcomes examined, a decision to have an abortion resulted in an elevated risk for women.

"What is most notable in this study is that abortion contributed significant independent effects to numerous mental health problems above and beyond a variety of other traumatizing and stressful life experiences," they concluded.

Researchers at Otago University in New Zealand reported their findings in the British Journal of Psychiatry and found that women who have abortions have an increased risk of developing mental health problems.

The study found that women who had abortions had rates of mental health problems about 30% higher than other women. The conditions most associated with abortion included anxiety disorders and substance abuse disorders.

Abortions increased the risk of severe depression and anxiety by one-third and as many as 5.5 percent of all mental health disorders seen in New Zealand result from women having abortions.

A third study, from a team at the University of Queensland and published in the December issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry, found women who have an abortion are three times more likely to experience a drug or alcohol problem during their lifetime.

The study showed that women who had experienced an abortion were at increased risk of illicit drug and alcohol use compared with women who had never been pregnant or who gave birth.

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